


Lovely Silk Roads

by VultureLovesong



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Agathokakological Worldview, Apathetic Harry, Dark Magic, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Good Dark Side, Grey Harry, Horcrux Bonds, M/M, Personal Growth, Possessive Tom Riddle, Sane Voldemort, Sexual Content, Some character bashing, Soul Bond, faerie harry, obscure branches of magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:18:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6196507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VultureLovesong/pseuds/VultureLovesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Evans Potter wasn't quite human, and neither is Harry, a fact he realizes when he comes into a magical inheritance on his fifteenth birthday. It is a change that does not come without many changes to Harry himself, but what will this mean to the magical world? What will this mean for the war? Can they still trust their savior? Add in the wizarding world viewing him a liar, prophetic lucid dreams, a defense teacher bend on oppression, on top of a few secrets Harry never would have wished to know and Harry's shifting views of magic in general, Harry's life has just gotten a whole lot more interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovely Silk Roads

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: Nc-16, Explicit, MA-16+, R
> 
> Themes: Faes and Faeries, Agathokakological Worldview, Horcrux bonds, Personal Growth, Good Dark Side, Some Light Side Bashing, Some Dark Side bashing, Some Character Bashing, Obscure Branches of Magic
> 
> Warnings: Sexual Content, Apathy, Some Bloody and/or Violent Scenes
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This Is A Work Of Fanfiction Based On The Works And World Of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Saga. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING! All Rights To Harry Potter And His World Go To J. K. Rowling And Her Associates. Thank You! ~ V

## Lovely Silk Roads

**Chapter One - Fly Away Now**

**Prior To 1995 - 1996 School Year**

* * *

 

Dawn. The most enchanting and ethereal of hours. It is in these earliest morning hours of the seventh day of the seventh month, on a street full of identical droll houses lined in perfect rows mirroring the other, where a little magic is stirring. In number 4 Privet Drive, a house standing out as the dullest and best kept home on the block, an almost fifteen year old boy writhes in pain on the floor of his bedroom, desperate to keep the screams behind his tightly pursed lips. He is in agony unlike any he has ever had the displeasure to experience, and that says quite a bit considering his whole life is one long line of painful experiences wrapped up in a web of deceit.

He knows vaguely what is happening to him. Barty Crouch Jr. briefly touched the subject of the creature blood inheritance during his time play-acting as Mad Eye Moody. It was only a single class, explaining how magic comes from mating with a creature in their past, something the pure-bloods got all up in arms over, even Ron, and then an even shorter explanation of how a full creature inheritance is very rare, and barley touching on a trio of potions used to induce a creature inheritance in certain desperate situations, only working if said creature has been introduced to the bloodline within the past four generations on either side. Harry had to ask after the class ended how to brew the potions, and they had taken the rest of his fourth year to brew. Barty had said that the first would show what creature he get his magic from, and the second two would cause the inheritance. He explained that most creature inheritances only add a small boost of magic and a few odd traits, and that it would heal any sickness, including past abuse.

Considering that Voldemort had come back to life at the end of last school year, hard to believe it had only been thirteen days since, Harry was desperate enough to use anything to help himself become stronger, including this. Although now he is regretting it. He brought this on himself though. It's his fault for trusting a Death Eater, even if he did not know he was a Death Eater at the time.

The first potion came with the shocking revelation that his mother had not been a human at all, but a faerie who her own mother trapped in a human body, before she was adopted into a muggle family, and she never found out. The faeries had all vanished or been slaughtered by Grindelwalds army, and Lily's mother had been the last known fae left. Harry will admit his own stupidity, going into this without gathering more information on how such a revelation could affect the ritual, but he was too shocked to even think about it, and now he is paying the price with the searing white hot pain that is consuming his entire being in this moment. It feels like he is shattering apart like he is made of extremely delicate glass, thrown shattered into fire and acid, and then remade from the atoms up.

The blinding pain lasts for a minute that feels like hours, and then it slowly lessens over the next half an hour until it is only an uncomfortable prickly feeling like all his limbs fell asleep. Harry is shaky and boneless, but he forces his limbs to cooperate, and he pulls himself to his feet. His mouth is dry and thick with the vinegary flavor of the potions and the metallic taste of his own blood from biting his bottom lip hard enough to split it. He feels heavy and light all at once, long fingers twitchy with nervous energy on his legs, the chilly summer breeze blowing in through the window and making his bare chest cold. The room is lit with pinkish orange light from the sunrise. Harry conjures a floor to ceiling mirror and stares at himself, as he did just before he took the first potion, to get a good feel of all the changes.

**~*~ ~*~**

Before, he could only look upon himself in disgust. Years of neglect, malnutrition, and abuse had left him looking like a scrawny, bone thin, pale, short boy with too messy hair, and knobby knees and elbows. He almost cannot believe the changes in his appearance. His skin is still pale, fairer in color than before in fact, but with a healthy glow to it. He is taller too, somewhere between 163 and 167 cms if he is guessing correctly, and still very thin, but healthy with lean muscle and hardened but soft flesh instead of just skin on bones. Just that alone makes him look his age, instead of twelve, but that is not the only changes. His hair is longer, wild instead of messy, giving him a devil-may-care sort of look, and a darker shade of black that shimmers with a violet sheen as the light filtering through his window hits it. His jewel green eyes have not changed overly much, aside from him no longer needing glasses, but they look even more mesmerizing than usual with his thicker eyelashes and the lack of ugly glasses to hide them. He looks... he looks attractive. Harry has never been vain, always aware of just how unattractive he is under his horribly baggy clothing. Even this ritual was more for the added benefit of strength and less pain, more for the upcoming fight against Voldemort than for himself. Now though, he can imagine himself in fitting clothes, looking every bit as attractive as he feels right now, and he can imagine people staring at him for some reason other than his fame. Damn he feels like a narcissist, but he can't help but feel he deserves to feel a little vain right now considering his entire life he has had no self-esteem.

There is a slight problem, however, that nearly makes him faint in shock and causes his admiring of himself to come to an abrupt stop, as if someone derailed a train and crashed it right into his mind. Harry has wings. Long very stunning butterfly wings attached to his back, right now very tender and dragging across the floor, soft silky fiery red-orange on what at first looks black, but which shines purple just like his hair in the light, more of a jewel like amethyst plum color instead of just the purplish glimmer on black that his hair does. As a child he was very fascinated by butterflies, and before the Dursleys smashed his butterfly farm and stole all his books he spent most of his time trapped in that closet studying them. His wings are a red variant of the Lesser Purple Emperor butterfly, poetic for it had been his favorite butterfly as a child. Harry flutters his long wings, flaring them outwards. They are the same color on both sides, folding down more like a moth's wings than those of a butterfly, and they span out at least twice as long as he is tall, perhaps even longer. He flutters them again, this time startles when they lift him off the ground and he bumps his head on his roof. He folds them up quickly, too fast for he falls to the ground painfully. He stands up with shakily and brushes himself off. Gorgeous as they are though, he is panicking because hiding a pair of faerie wings is going to be insanely difficult.

Although his sudden vanity is no longer as strange when he considers that he came into a full creature blood inheritance, and faeries are a vain mischievous bunch.

He frantically searches his mind for the information he read on the fair folk, and remembers a small chapter on how the faes could hide their wings by turning them into tattoos on their backs, but he is not sure how to clear his mind. He has tried before, and when he was a child it was easy to escape into his mind and block everything out, but he hasn't tried since he was nine. It has been six years since he last meditated. It's worth a shot though.

Harry crosses the room to the bed, his wings dragging across the floor again like a shimmering bejeweled cape. He sits cross-legged on the bed, hard to do when he first must rearrange his still sore wings, and starts concentrating on his breathing. It's a bit difficult, his mind torn in a billion and one directions, but he eventually manages to calm his mind. It's peaceful, his mind awash with tranquility and utter blankness. He concentrates then on his wings, the shape and feel of them, from the silken soft scales as small as flecks of pixie dust, the vibrant metallic scintillating colors, and the light as a feather feel of them on his back. Then he concentrates on them becoming a beautiful metallic tattoo on his back. Harry keeps his eyes shut as he stands and walks back to the mirror, and he looks at his back in the mirror. He frowns. He had hoped that he would be seeing an image of a purple and orange butterfly wings across his back, but the wings are still out. He tries again, until he is ready to give up, and on the fourth try he does it. He feels an aching pain in his back, in his spine and his bones, then the light weight on his back is suddenly replaced with a soft burning. He feels oddly heavy and clumsy all of a sudden, but he grins triumphantly all the same.

**~*~ ~*~**

His elation does not last long, because right after he manages to get his wings back in his skin his cousin comes in yelling at him to give back his cigarettes, which Harry admittedly did steal on one of his lower moments, which immediately becomes a rather girlishly high shriek upon looking at him. That crashes Harry back to reality like a bucket of ice water over his head. In his excitement he forgot about the Dursleys. In the whole four months since he learned of the potions he never once thought of the Dursleys. First it was curiosity over whether or not he could brew them in the first place, then it became a semi-necessity after Cedric died and Voldemort came back like the monster from a child's book, and then it became a reality as he drank the dark blue potions. Not once since he first started thinking of doing this did he stop to consider the Dursleys.

His uncle and aunt are now with Dudley to see why he screamed, and Harry is in a sudden panic. They are yelling at him now, but his blinding fear is making it difficult to hear beyond his hummingbird fast heartbeat. Maybe this is why the sharp punch to his stomach is so shocking. He goes down on his knees, but his uncle attacks, and it is a blur of fists and boots and shrill voices too loud to understand. He catches some of it, words like freak, unnatural, and threats shrilly spat as hands grab at him.

_Scared. So scared. Need to be safe. Safe. Escape. I NEED TO ESCAPE!_

In his fright his wings come out to protect him, but it only makes their ire worse. His uncle grabs one of his wings and pulls hard, tearing it at the top, and as blood starts trickling down his back, Harry concentrates as hard as he can, saying the same thing over and over, wishing with all his being that his magic would save him.

_TAKE ME TO SAFETY!_

Harry feels his magic snap, feels it. He has never felt magic before, but now that he understands what he is feeling he instinctively knows that he is far more powerful, and he what he needs to do. He concentrates on the thought of safety, letting his magic cocoon around him, and then his eyes snap open just before he feels his magic jerk him, spinning like a top, and he is crashing across a hard wooden floor, his wings out and curled around him to lessen the pain of the fall.

Harry unfurl his wings, and his blurry eyes take notice of the blood, his blood, splattered across the walls and floor of this unfamiliar place. He feels weak, defenseless, and pitiable. He tries to raise himself up, but his arms give out and he sprawls back across the floor. He struggles still, gritting his teeth, and the next time his arms betray him a pair of hands with long slender fingers catches him by the shoulders. He hears a muffled voice speak and glances up to see his savior, but all he sees is a silhouette and light. Then everything goes fuzzy, his eyes roll backwards into his head, and then... nothing.

**~*~ ~*~**

Tom Marvolo Riddle, more commonly referred to by various annoying little monikers, or his chosen name of Voldemort by particularly suicidal idiots, recently resurrected Dark Lord, is in his study reading the droll reports of his followers, when there is a flash of gold, and something is suddenly crashing down onto the floor of his study. He has his wand instantly trained on what at first appears to be an odd bundle of jewel colored ethereal silk, but in a second is revealed to be wings attached to the back of a battered bloody person as they snap outward in a display of aggressive fear and fling blood everywhere, a few drops even reaching as far as him and dripping down his cheek. The faerie boy glances about weakly and tries to hoist himself up, but his arms betray him and he crashes back to the floor with a whimper. The fearsome Dark Lord finds himself feeling pity towards the creature, abandoning his wand on the desk, and stalking across his study just in time to catch the stubborn creature by the shoulders as he falls again. Faeries are fickle creatures, but a single act of kindness can cause them to bond to the one they perceive as their savior, the most loyal of allies, while cruelty can cause them to destroy everything the one who wronged them holds dear, and leave them worse than dead when they are done. Knowing this, he thinks taking pity on this creature is really the only thing he could have done.

"I've got you, fair one." He tries to reassure, not quite sure how to deal with this situation. The faerie looks up at him with unfocused but very familiar eyes. "Potter?" He gasps in true shock, because the boy looks nothing like the child from the graveyard only a month ago, and he was most emphatically not a fae then. A pity, fae blood could have only helped with that particular ritual.

Before he can really focus on this new revelation, his child nemesis is fainting and slumping forward in his arms, and Voldemort is brought back to the fact that the boy has clearly been beaten to nearly death, and he feels a spike of irrational anger. He will not have spent so much effort on trying to kill this damnable child for him to die by someone else's hands. This boy is his. His to hurt. His to kill. His to possess. DAMMIT JUST HIS! He doesn't share his things.

Voldemort swoops the lightweight boy into his arms, cradling him to his chest as carefully as he can while trying to maneuver around the long wings. Harry stirs weakly in his unconscious state, and the Dark Lord tightens his hold before apparating them to his chambers, and lying the boy-who-lived on top of his bed. With his drooping wings carefully spread across the covers, and his pale bloody broken form, he looks frail. Voldemort has the unprecedented need to lock the boy away from the world, and it makes his teeth clench up. Shaking his head, Voldemort forces himself to stop brooding and focus on the current situation. Namely, the fact that the bleeding boy on his bed is in desperate need of a healer.

The Dark Lord is a fair healer himself, so he doesn't want to call in a healer just yet. He'll do that if he is in over his head. He casts a few diagnostic spells to see what kind of medical history the boy has and what damage he needs to be fixing, and Voldemort finds himself surprised by the answer. His medical history is a mess of obvious abuse and neglect spanning from fifteen months to the current year, with blocks and compulsory magic twisted all over his core like a thorned vine, and he can't help but wonder who is responsible for such a poisonous act against his little adversary. There are simply too many for the blocks to be for his own good, and compulsions are not something used by someone with good will on their mind. They are causing problems with one of the top two things on the list. The newest items on the list being the single beating which left him like this, dying on the Dark Lord's bed, and an induced creature inheritance, which he realizes is the cause of his new look. The creature inheritance is causing its own damage, a strain on his magic as it tries to escape it's blocks. He burnt up all his available core fleeing to Voldemort.

Fortunately, Harry's wounds are easy enough to fix, but unfortunately do to his damaged core and the sensitivity it causes, he will have to do it the slow way. And that means spending the next week or so painstakingly nursing the boy-who-lived back to health because Voldemort refuses to let Harry die because of whoever did this to him. He wants to be the one to kill him.

Can he be blamed though? He's spent fifteen years obsessing over this boy, and a good five years before he was even born obsessing over the prophecy, eager for a July's end to come and bring him the child worthy of challenging him. He didn't even go to the Potter house to kill the child, just test him, but his patience hasn't been the same since his younger years, and by the time he found the Potters, and found himself in the nursery with Harry's parents dead Voldemort had lost all patience, so killing the child seemed the best option. And now after their two fights have ended without any real winner or looser, he really can't be blamed for wanting to win this game on his own merits, prove experience and knowledge are more powerful than dumb luck and rash bravery.

He thinks about this as he stitches the boy up, splints the broken bones, and spreads healing balm over his cuts, bruises, and torn wings. It is a long and arduous task, his fingers ache and the the sun is high in the sky by the time he is done, announcing the afternoon with a mockingly cheerful clear sky as Voldemort washes the blood off his hands. Sitting back down in a chair by his own bed he gets back to his reports, but his mind is still stuck on a small question that has been bugging him. How does Harry Potter know where his base is, and why did he come to Voldemort of all people while he was so weak? It just doesn't make sense. There is the chance he did not mean to end up in Voldemort's study. Often when faced with a desperate perilous situation accidental magic is known to react to the situation, and with the wild pure magic of a fae it is even more likely, but then that would mean that Harry Potter thinks of him as a safe person, his home as a safe place, and that is one of the most lucrative things he has ever even considered.

**~*~ ~*~**

Two days after his arrival, Harry moans and stirs fitfully on the bed, and the Dark Lord wakes with a start, leaning over and looking down as a pair of pained bleary multi-shaded green eyes blink open. He tries to say something, which Voldemort thinks might have been his name, his given name, but he can't understand. "Here." He props the boy up by the pillows and conjures some water, which the boy-who-lived sniffs suspiciously, before apparently deciding that the water is not jeopardous to his health and taking a few sips.

"Voldemort?" Harry rasps in a soft little voice, like he is scared and at the same time accepting of his fate. His wings give away his fear more than his small voice could though, quivering in a way that suggests that he is very much aware of the fact that he is at the mercy of the Dark Lord.

"Try not to move too much." Voldemort answers. "I won't hurt you while you are in my care, so relax Potter. You can explain how you found my base and why you decided to come here after you are done healing."

"Shouldn't you be trying to kill me?" He asks with a humorless laugh, followed by a weak moan of pain. "Not like I can fight back. I practically delivered myself to you on a silver platter."

Voldemort glares at him. "When I kill you, it will be with you fully functional and not dying on my bed." He says with a conviction that surprises himself. "I refuse to finish off someone else's leftovers like a dog begging for table scraps."

Harry actually laughs at that, a happy warm sound then ends with him clutching his broken ribs with sharp little breathes of pain, but his eyes shine a bit brighter. "You're awfully territorial." He declares mirthfully. He leans back on the pillows with a content sort of upturn to his lips. "Is it odd that I find that nice?"

Voldemort chuckles. "A little bit, but you are entitled to have as many oddities as you want." He admits.

"No one cares about me." Harry sighs. "They only care about the boy-who-lived. It's nice to have someone care about me, even if you'll kill me in the morning."

He falls back asleep before Voldemort can question his odd words, and the Dark Lord frowns before getting up and stretching. He casts a tempus for the time. He has a Death Eater meeting in thirty minutes. "Mixy!" He calls, and the house elf appears. "Watch over my guest. If he wakes come get me."

"Yes, Master Dark Lord." She bows. Voldemort stalks out of the room to get ready to deal with his pathetic forces.

**~*~ ~*~**

The next time Harry opens his eyes, it is to the feeling of long cold fingers rubbing a warm paste on his shoulders. He blinks open his eyes curiously and is greeted by the sight of Voldemort rubbing a great slave nearly healed wounds. It is an odd feeling, but good as well. "Good evening, Mr. Potter." He says without looking up or stopping his actions.

"Hi." He answers. He means to thank him when he opens his moth next, but he says something else instead. "Why are you doing this?"

Voldemort turns his wine red serpentine eyes onto him with a look of pondering. "I am more than component in the art of healing." He answers. "Since I am perfectly capable of taking care of you, I felt it would be a waste to contact a healer without knowing if you could trust them not to reveal your presence in my house, or the fact I am back in general."

Harry blinks at that answer, then shakes his head. "No, I meant why are you even bothering?"

The Dark Lord stops rubbing the potion laced healing cream into his shoulders and turns to wash his hands. "I believe we covered this six days ago, the last time you were awake." He answers. "I'm dreadfully possessive of that which I consider mine, and that includes you, since you are mine to kill. I'd like it to be on my own terms, not someone else's, and preferably where I have many spectators to witness my triumph over you."

Harry chuckles, to his and the Dark Lord's surprise. "That sounds a bit theatrical." He grins.

"It is that." He agrees. "Now, I must ask now that you are awake, how did you find my headquarters?"

Harry shrugs. "I didn't." He answers honestly. "I was panicking. All I could think was that I needed to get somewhere safe before I died. The next thing I knew I was fainting on your floor. I didn't even realize it was you until the first time I woke up."

Voldemort arches a hairless brow in a way that is both elegant and skeptical. "And I am safe?" he inquires.

Harry laughs. "Well I guess." He grins roguishly. "You did do a lovely job of patching me up and all."

"I wanted a serious answer, Potter." The Dark Lord deadpans, and he crosses his arms as if to show how serious he is.

The boy-who-lived shrugs once more. "I don't rightly know. I wouldn't have though of you first were I not panicked and dying if that's what you mean." He says. "I guess it could be that the only person I have ever fully trusted was the sixteen year old version of you from the diary, and maybe my magic brought me to the closest thing to him, which would be you."

"My Horcrux?" Voldemort sputter with an incredulous look.

"I don't recognize the word, but yeah, I guess if the diary was called a Horcrux then that would be a positive." Harry shrugs.

"You trusted me?" He looks so lost it is almost cute, or it would be if he wasn't a terrifying skeletal snake man.

"It was hard not to." Harry reveals, not sure why he feels like telling him such a private thing. "I was a naive little twelve year old without many friends, and there you were, this charming incredibly handsome older boy, who listened to me, and encouraged me to be myself in everything including the things my friends would have abandoned me for. My poor hormones never stood a chance."

To his utter shock the terrifying serpentine Dark Lord flushes bright red. "Are you insinuating you had a crush on me?"

"Are you insinuating you have no idea how attractive and charming you were at that age?" Harry deadpans.

"No, I am aware." He says. "But -"

Harry cuts him off. "But nothing. You were bloody gorgeous." He laughs. "It damn near killed me when I found out you were Voldemort. Well actually I didn't even care about that, completely and utterly in love with you as I was. It was you revealing that our entire friendship was a lie to get me down to the chamber and trying to kill me that did it. Ginny was the only one who could possibly understand why I was so heartbroken over having to kill your diary self, or Horcrux, or what have you." Then he adds softly, "Sorry about your Horcrux though. I wouldn't have killed him if he didn't try to kill me and Gin."

"It is unfortunate, but it is more Lucius's fault than yours, so I suppose I won't crucio you." Suddenly the snake-like pale man is giving him a smug little smile. "You know, I feel strangely flattered right now. I can't believe you had a crush on me." He intones gleefully.

Harry groans, blushing bright cherry red. "Oh, you're never going to let me live that down are you."

"Not a chance." He agrees.

"Oh bloody hell." Harry slumps back against the pillows, not sure whether to despair or dig himself a grave to crawl into.

**~*~ ~*~**

"So, am I a prisoner now?" Voldemort looks up from Lucius's report to see Harry leaning against the door frame, wearing his clothes, his wings no longer out.

"No." He answers, ignoring the possessive need to tell him that he is a prisoner. "You may leave when you wish. Though leaving will mean you feel like you are strong enough to go up against me again, just so you are aware, and the vow I made to not hurt you only extends to as long as you are still within my wards. I will need you to take a vow before you leave not to reveal anything you learned here without my express permission." And then he adds, "And stop stealing my clothes, Potter."

The boy gives him a lopsided grin. "Well what if I am not an idiot, and I realize I will always be at a disadvantage because you are older, and a genius to boot, so I can't possibly survive this war without sheer luck? Does that mean I can't leave?"

Voldemort puts down his report, knowing he won't be getting much work done with the not quite fifteen year old in the room. Harry has been here for four days, not including his time unconscious in the Dark Lord's bed, and it became clear from the get go that he would be a pain in his butt for his entire stay at the manor.

"No." He says. "You can still leave and hope you're luck is good enough."

He nods thoughtfully, and then he changes the subject abruptly. "Hey, how come you look human right now?"

Voldemort inwardly groans as he remembers taking off his glamour a few hours earlier. He looks much like like he did when he was younger, just an attractive man in his mid-twenties instead of a sixty-nine year old man. His face is all sharp angular features, with his high cheekbones, slender straight nose, and he is tall, thin, and pale as porcelain. His ink back hair is styled neatly but falling in his dark red eyes. Judging by the look Harry has on his face, he is still just as attractive as he remembers being at twenty five. He had not wanted the boy to find out, but Voldemort improvises anyways, sending him an imperious look, making it seem like Harry is an oblivious idiot.

"You didn't think that I looked like that permanently, did you?" He asks, and at the sheepish shrug he scoffs. "It is a glamour of sorts I use to scare my followers, and it can get kind of stifling. Had I realized you'd be in here I'd have changed. Wouldn't want you to be confused, after all." he makes it out to look like he is about to change back to his snake-like form.

"You don't have to. I like this face." Says the blushing boy-who-lived hastily, and Voldemort inwardly smirks 

"Well it is too late to keep it a secret anyways, so I probably will take off my glamour while it is just the two of us. But I expect you to keep this to yourself when you and I are back to fighting. My followers listen better when they don't realize I am just as human as them." He says. "Now sit down if you are going to stay here. I am actually busy."

Harry crosses the room and sits down on the edge of his desk, right in Voldemort's personal space, one foot on the table with his leg bent at the knee, the other leg dangling between his own. The roguish look on his face is simultaneously challenging him to do something about it, and showing slight worry that he has pushed the boundaries too far. Voldemort just rolls his eyes, pulls his other leg down, drops a book and some paper onto the teen's lap, and starts penning the important letters he had been procrastinating. Harry doesn't complain about the childish action, his face so red that it rivals Voldemort's eyes. It is silent for a while, just the scratch of his quill on parchment, and everything is peaceful.

**~*~ ~*~**

Harry watches the Dark Lord work, politely not reading what he is writing despite his curiosity. He doesn't know how to feel right now, with the man who he has feared using his lap as a desk, but he knows he doesn't feel the same blinding hatred he felt for the man not so long ago. He has only been kind and honest the entire time he has been here, and it is messing with Harry's head. He doesn't know what he should do, but he knows what he wants, so he takes a deep breath and convinces himself to be brave.

"Hey Voldemort?" Harry breaks the silence hesitantly. The Dark Lord looks up, flexing his fingers as if just noticing how sore his fingers are, and Harry looks at the clock and realizes that they have been sitting there in silence for two and a half hours. Voldemort leans back, moving his papers so that Harry can move his sore legs, but all he does is cross them and flex his bare toes. They are far too asleep to do more than that without risking kicking Voldemort in his unfairly gorgeous face.

"Yes Harry?" He asks, calm and collected as always, and Harry tries not to dwell on the fact that he called him Harry and not Potter.

"Why don't I hate you?" He asks. "I should, after all you have done, but I don't and I can't figure out why."

Voldemort put his papers on the desk next to him before answering. "You induced a full creature inheritance." he explains. "You are a fae, a creature of pure magic. You will notice many changes to your personality, vanity and harsh mood swings being some. All your emotions are going to be over powered, any kindness of slight to you only fueling them. I have been kind to you since your transformation, so your faerie brain sees me as a friend, despite anything I did prior to your inheritance. If I were to do you harm, hurt you in any way, you would suddenly hate me more than you ever did before your transformation. It will be the same with everyone, like the people who hurt you."

At that Harry remembers the Dursley's, and he suddenly is filled with an anger like burning, worse than anything he ever knew. Voldemort's smirk shocks him back to the present, and he flushes. Uncomfortable, Harry changes the subject.

"Can you teach me dueling magic?" He blurts, and Voldemort chokes on his own spit. Harry panics a bit. "It's just that no one tells me anything, I mean I don't even know why you want me dead so much, but it would make it more of a challenge for you if I actually knew this stuff, Right? You'd even be able to throw it out that you taught me everything I know when you do kill me, add more insult to injury. " Looking at his still stunned face, Harry blushes and starts to try to get off the table. "On second thought, forgot I said anything. I'm gonna go find food."

Voldemort isn't going to let him go that easy it seems. "No." He grabs Harry by the thighs to keep him in place, and Harry flushes an even deeper shade of scarlet and his breath hitches a little, even as he fights to keep still. The look on Voldemort's face suggests he is filing that interesting little bit of information for later, and Harry inwardly curse his teenage hormones and Voldemort's pretty face, so much like his younger self, who Harry really did love more than he is comfortable admitting. "I was just under the impression that I would be the first to breach that particular subject. You startled me. Of course I will teach you." harry grins, and Voldemort pauses as if something occurs to him. "Now, what exactly do you mean when you say you have no clue why I keep trying to kill you? There is literally a prophecy that states you will cause me downfall. Surely Dumbledore told you."

Harry leans forward with a fascinated look. "Is there really?" He asks, unbearably curious. "No one said."

**~*~ ~*~**

Voldemort is suddenly pretty certain that the light side is trying to kill his nemesis before he can do it himself. "Yes!" he says, a bit sharply, but the faerie boy-who-lived doesn't seem to notice.

"And this prophecy is why you came after my parents?" He deducts. At Voldemort's nod he leans back again. "Well, what's it say then?"

"If Dumbledore ever breaches the subject I suggest pretending you don't know it, and I would like him to think I still only know the first two lines, understand?" Harry nods eagerly. " The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

Harry lets a low whistle out. "Damn." He says. "That actually explains a lot. That last bit is confusing though, about neither of us living while the other survives. A bit redundant almost."

"The whole bloody thing is confusing, Potter." The Dark Lord points out patiently. "All I knew that night was that you would grow to vanquish me and I took the necessary precautions. I will not apologize for killing two proven to be worthy adversaries, though you should know I was asked to let your mother live, but when I told your mother to stand aside she did not. She was a brave, and a good mother to the end. Your father as well, he did not have a wand when he came up against me, prepared to do what he had to in order to save you and her."

Harry nods solemnly, and then laughs bitterly. "It must seem so pathetic to you that I know more about my parents from you than I have learned from anyone."

He frowns. "No, I find it sad."

"I am in contact with two of their old friends, but all we talk about is the present. " he reveals, and Voldemort feels a sharp spike of pity. He sometimes wishes he knew someone who could tell him what his mother was like, a fact he tells the boy, who smiles soft and sympathetically. They are at peace, if only for now.

 

 


End file.
